His chin went up, his body straightened, but he still retained his hold on her, and his voice changed now as he said quickly, ”You weren’t exactly a young girl, you knew what to expect from that proposition.”
”I didn’t, not really. No, I didn’t, and I was a young girl, innocent.”
”Then you deceived me, Mr Maxwell, and yourself also; but 238
but now Hilda.” He made to draw her to him and he showed his astonishment when she snapped her arm from his grasp and, looking him straight in the face, said, ”Mr Gilmore, I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on God’s earth, and I don’t thank you for the offer either. Looking back, you have caused more harm in my life than good, at least you have caused me to create more harm in it than good.”
”Hilda! Hilda! How dare you say such a thing.” He was genuinely shocked and showed it. ”You have changed. This disaster that has fallen upon you has changed your character entirely.”
”Well, if that’s so I’ve got the disaster to thank for something positive. And look, as I said, I’m busy and . . . and I would like you to leave. And furthermore you needn’t expect to see me in church again.”
The Reverend Gilmore was stunned into silence, but seeming to remember his vocation, he apparently forced himself to work at it now, saying slowly, ’Whatever you feel about me, Hilda, you mustn’t take it out on God. It’s not going to help you at all denying the Almighty.”
”I’m not denying the Almighty, I’m only telling you that I won’t seek Him under your guidance again, I’ll find my own way to God, at least I hope so.”
”I hope so too. Indeed I hope so.” His tone now was like that of a schoolmaster who had lost a battle with a pupil ; and he glared down on her for a moment before stalking from the room, and if the resounding clash echoing from the front door was anything to go by it proved that the vicar was more than a little put out.
Hilda sat down on the couch and, leaning her elbow on the arm, drooped her head on to the support of her hand as she asked herself how she had put up with that man’s sanctimonious twaddle all these years. But to go for him as she had done proved without doubt the change in her. She couldn’t recognize herself. There had been times of late when she was a little afraid of what was happening to her. Things that she would have condemned a year ago, and verbally to Abel, thereby arousing his quiet disdain or open angry comment, now didn’t even attract her notice.
On nights when, afraid to stay in the house alone, she waited at the open gateway for Dick returning from his late shift, or from taking Molly to the pictures, and watched the uniformed men going by, their arms round girls, making for the outskirts and lonely 239
tr
lanes, she no longer thought: Scandalous! it should be put a-s”top to. A different one every night no doubt. She just let them pass without mental comment. Perhaps the sight of the entwined figures aroused somewhere in the hitherto shuttered depths of her a feeling akin to jealousy.
Last night while sitting wide-eyed, propped up against the pillows, she had asked herself, would she now willingly make Abel happy if she was given the chance, and her answer had been that it was a stupid question, because she would never get the chance. A woman like her never got a second chance, second chances were doled out to people like Florrie who weren’t afraid to take them; to people who grabbed at life, and lived it, lived it as if each day was their first and last.
*4 On the sound of three hoots of a car horn penetrating the house, she pulled herself up from the couch. The signal meant that Arthur was in need of help. That was another thing she hadn’t realized, all the work that Abel had done in the yard. He had not only done the repairs to the odd car they got in, but repaired all the bikes, and that was a no mean feat when he had to literally make his own spare parts. He had also seen to the running of the business. She had imagined that she was running the whole show because she did the books, but during the past months she had learned differently. She had’also learned that Arthur Baines didn’t work for her as he had done for Abel ; she was a woman, and as she heard him say, she didn’t know a chassis from a bumper or a threespeed from an inner tube. She could have enlightened him on these points, but she knew that if she had words with him, he would walk out, men were scarce, even old men.
She was tired of the business, she was tired of everything. Perhaps when the war ended Dick would take the business over and she would retire . . . and do what? Go on coach tours, like the widows with money did before the war; go on a sea voyage hoping to find another man. No, she mustn’t give up the business, and war or no war she must let Arthur Baines know she was still here. But oh, the effort.
As she opened the kitchen door she saw Dick hurrying up the yard. It was his day off from the factory and he had been out since eight o’clock this morning and now it was just on four. She never asked him where he went because most times when he went out without Molly she knew where he was bound for. Time and again
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she had wanted to ask him how Abel was taking things, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it; and he never mentioned his father. With him leaving early this morning, she guessed where he was
goingShe stepped back into the kitchen. Arthur Baines could get on with it whatever it was.
She waited for Dick’s coming, and he smiled at her as he came into the room. As he took offhis coat he said, ”Phew! I’m hot. . . . You all right?”
”Yes.”
”Anything happened?” ;
”No. Oh well, I had a visit from Mr Gilmpre.”
”Oh!”
”I ... I don’t think he’ll be back again.”
”No ?” Dick showed his surprise, and she shook her head and, her face unsmiling, she said, ”No; he made me an offer of marriage.”
”Oh Lord!”
”Yes, oh Lord!”
”I’m . . . I’m sorry. You refused him ? You did, didn’t you ?”
”Yes.”
”He’s got a nerve. At his age! he’s near retirement I should say.”
”I think he’s past it, he’s only being kept on because of the war. Anyway, as I said, he won’t be coming back again, and I won’t be going to hear him.”
”You’re not going to church any more ?” Dick could not prevent his eyebrows from rising.
”Not his anyway; perhaps not any, it’ll all depend how great the need is.”
Impulsively he caught hold of her hand, and when her head dropped on to her chest as she muttered, ”Oh Dick!” he put his arms around her and said, ”There now. There now.”
When she drew herself away from him she blinked her eyes and rubbed her hand hard over her lips before asking, ”Have you had anything to eat ?”
”No; I’m starving.”
”Well, hang on just a minute, I’ve got a casserole in the oven. I’ll just slip down and see what Arthur wants, then I’ll get you something.”
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... By the time she returned he had set the tabte for both of ! j them and she looked towards it, saying, ”Oh good!” then having
heaped his plate with the food she put it before him.
He looked at it, then from it to her and said, <’What about [ you?”
”I’m not hungry.”
”You should eat.”
There was a vestige of a smile on her lips now as she said, ”At one time you were always telling me I was eating too much.”
”Yes, I know, but now you’re eating too little, the flesh is dropi ping off you.”
”Well, that’s all for the best, I’m getting a figure for the first time in me life.”
***** He took up his knife and fork, but dropping his hands to either side of his plate he looked down on the food as he said, ”I saw him today and from what I can gather he’ll be out in a couple of weeks or so.”
He now raised his eyes to hers and she said quietly, ”I’m glad. -
1 Believe me” - she nodded her head - ”I’m glad. I won’t begin to 1 know any peace until he’s free.”<
br />
I | ”He asked after you.”
I ” She stared at him for a full minute before she said, ”Don’t be Ik kind, Dick; I’d rather you didn’t.”
I j He dropped the knife and fork on to the table and, bending for-I ward, he said, ”I’m not being kind. I’ve never said this before, I have I, and I’ve been to see him a number of times. I tell you he I asked after you. What he said was just simple. ’How’s Hilda ?’ he I said. I think he realizes better than anybody that his stretch would H have been two or three times the length it is if it hadn’t been for H that letter you wrote.”
I She walked round the table, then went to the fireplace before I she said, ”It... it was as little as I could do. I hadn’t played fair I by him no more than he had played fair by me. I ... I never made I him happy. You understand ?” She turned her head to the side. ”I I felt I owed him something. If... if I’d been sensible and not been I . so damned hidebound he might never have gone to our Florrie, I even . . . even though I knew he was struck on her from the I first.”
I Dick stared across the table at the bowed head. It wasn’t the I first time she had said damn over the last months, nor used the I 242
term, my God! How she had changed. His dad wouldn’t recognize her. What a pity it was all too late. •
As he looked at her now he knew he felt for her as if she were his mother, his real mother; and she had been a mother to him for years. That other woman, that woman in the court that day, God above ! if he had blamed his father before for Alice and the consequences of his association with Alice, the sight of his mother that day in the court lifted all blame from him. She was a little hell-cat, a mean-faced little hell-cat. He felt there was no part of her in him and he had actually prayed to God that when he and Molly married and they had bairns none of them would be a throw-back to their granny.
She had collared him in the street after the trial. He had avoided her earlier in the court corridors but when she stopped dead in front of him in the street and said, ”Well, we haven’t grown much, have we?” he was back in the cottage and she was yelling at him: ”Well! where have you been?
Pick this up! Pick that up! Take that!” Every time he thought of it he was made aware of the slight deafness in his left ear. What she said next had inflamed him: ”Well, he’s got his deserts at last.”
For answer, he had almost shouted at her, ”It’s a pity you didn’t get yours,” on which he had turned from her and she had yelled after him, ”Like father like son, thankless sods!”
The encounter had been brief, a matter of minutes but he hoped he’d never come face to face with her again.
He pushed the plate to one side, rose from his chair, and went round the table and, putting his hands on Hilda’s shoulders, said, ”I want to say something to you I’ve never said before, and it’s this. I ... I look upon you as me mother. I always have done since I came to live in this house. I’m not going to call you Aunt Hilda any more, from now you’re going to be me mam, because that’s what you’ve been to me. And I want to thank you for all the care and attention you’ve given me over the years. . . .”
”Aw Dick! Dick!” Her voice cracked, the tears sprang from her eyes; then, her mouth agape, there issued forth a long drawn out wail and he pulled her towards him and pressed her face tightly into his shoulder but crying roughly now, ”Stop it! Don’t start that again. You’re over all that. Now listen to me, stop it!”
When her crying didn’t ease, he thrust her from him and taking her by the shoulders, actually shook her, even while he gulped in
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j his own throat. ”Now look,” he said, ”I’ve got a cqBple of hours before I’m due on duty an’ I want to have a bath an’ get changed, then go and see Molly, but I won’t be able to do anything if you don’t stop it. Now then ! And that’s another thing I want to say to you. Molly’s on duty up Primrose Square way, and I’m at the school tonight. Now they’ve been shorthanded there for a week or more since Mrs Ratcliffe went down with flu, so what about you coming and taking over the phone, it’ll be better than sitting , here alone ?”
”I... I couldn’t.” She was drying her face now on the tea towel I that she had grabbed from the rod, and she almost choked as he pulled her round to him again and said, ”Yes, you could. Look, I’m worried stiff when you’re left here on your own, you won’t go
^» into the shelter. ... I never know what you’re up to.”
”The raids have slackened, there hasn’t been any for ages, likely won’t be any more. ...”
”Oh, what about the doodle-bugs over the south coast. It could be our turn next. Look, I’m having no more arguments, you’re coming so that’s that. And now, if you don’t mind, I’ll have me clay cold dinner.” He stared at the table now and demanded, ”Where’s me tea ? And don’t say I shouldn’t drink tea with meat ’cos I’ve always drunk tea with meat.”
His rough strategy worked. She put the kettle on and began to busy herself around the kitchen, and as he looked at her his heart felt sore for her. She’d had a rotten deal. She had her faults, but who hadn’t. And she hadn’t deserved what she had got. Of a sudden he thought if it wasn’t for Florrie his dad would come back here and things would be different for both of them. But Florrie was set deep in his father’s life, as firm and lasting as the concrete base of a bridge. .• ; ,-•..-•.••
There were only ten minutes to go before he was relieved. He looked towards where Hilda was sitting in front of the stove. She looked tired. He smiled at her and nodded towards the clock, and then he looked to where Henry Blythe stood laughing with George Thompson as they pointed out to each other some of the
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children’s crayon drawings tacked to the partition, and it was just as Henry Blythe said, ”I think that’s supposed to be a messerschmitt, he’s made it the size of a matchstick, but he’s made the Lancaster bomber almost a foot long,” that the siren screamed overhead. They all turned and stared at one another; then almost simultaneously they said the same words : ”Oh no ! it’s six weeks.” They were scrambling now for their tin hats and overcoats and Henry Blythe, turning to Hilda, said, ”Do you think you can see to the phone?”
”Yes, but I ... I won’t be here by myself though, will I?” He looked at her somewhat in surprise, then said, ”No, no; someone ’11 be along of you, although he might have to dash off for a while.
It all depends on . . .”
Dick interrupted him, saying to Hilda, ”It’s all right, don’t worry. Just sit down there” - he led her round the desk - ”and if any calls come in write them down. One of us must be here to run the errands.” He smiled at her.
George Thompson now said, ”I’ll go round the building, Mary and Ronnie Biggs are on the north side but Hannah Farrow is by herself on the road.” He buttoned up his coat, adjusted his tin helmet, then went out.
”Well, I might as well make another pot of tea.” Henry Blythe took up the teapot and walked towards the kitchen, and as he did so the sound of the pop-pop of the anti-aircraft guns came to them. Looking towards Hilda, Dick said, ”Don’t worry. Don’t worry. They’re at the far side of the town; in fact, I think they’re beyond it. It could be Gateshead or Newcastle.”
When Dick next heard the sound of the anti-aircraft guns he knew they weren’t at a distance but inside the town now, Bog’s End way, which meant the docks, but as yet there was no sound of any explosion.
Minutes passed. Henry Blythe returned with the enamel teapot full of tea and proceeded to fill three mugs. It was just as he handed one across the wooden table to Hilda that the whole school building shook. By the time the next explosion rocked them the three of them were crouched under the Morrison shelter that was placed against the wall of the classroom. The building shuddered again with a third explosion, then a fourth.
There followed a silence, and in it they crawled from the shelter and stood up.
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When the phone rang it was Henry Blythe who learjf over the table and p
icked it up, and he nodded three or four times before ’ putting it down. Turning to Dick, he saiid, ”Bottom of Brampton
Hill got it bad. They must have got wind of the factory but they missed that. It seems a number of the big houses are levelled. They want help, all they can get. I’ll go down and take the others with me. You’ll be all right here, Dick, you’ll carry on. . . .”
”Mr Blythe, if ... if you don’t mind I’d rather go. You see ... well” - he glanced towards Hilda and found her staring wide-eyed at him - ”I ... I have an aunt down there, lives in No. 46, I’d ... I’d just like to make sure, if it’s all right with you.”
”Oh, it’s all right with me, get yourself off. Only tell the others.”
ijfW’l’» . . . Long before he came to the top of the hill he was running I in the glow of flames, and when he came to the brow and looked 1 downwards his stomach seemed to turn over inside its casing.
; They had said the bottom of Brampton Hill. It might be towards V ’ the bottom but the houses that were bkzing were just past the
! middle and 46 was just past the middle.
jj| Further down the hill he had to threap his way around fire eni’i gines, over hose pipes and through millin» men; and then he came to where the gate had been, and he lookec towards the blaze at one il end of the house, then to the enormou: heap of tangled wood,
brick and mortar at the other. He now ran to where they were ji guiding people into ambulances and hisroice sounded high and
cracked as he asked one uniformed man a:ter another: ”Forty-six.
Are these out of forty-six? and got such answers as, ”Where’s forty-six? There’s about six of them do»n.”
Pushing, he now made his way up wh;t had been the drive. In the glow from the fire he could see thatone end wall of the big house was still standing and, as if floatag in the air, a part of the third storey. It had likely been the .ttic and was held by a section of roof, which in turn was beinj held by the remaining i! wall.
The Man Who Cried Page 28